My research of Verbatim contradicts what the OP found. In fact, that seemed to be THE brand to go for if TY can't be had. In any event, I've used them with no issues. Including several decades-old relics from before I knew TY existed. My reading suggests the ones to avoid are Maxell and Memorex. Insofar as you only need 25 discs, you might try the SHF Classifieds. Lotsa people stockpiled TYs when they announced The End (hoping my 100-pak will be the final-final here). Maybe a member can help you out.
Google... J-CDR-ZZ-SK Seems to be plenty. I use them for needle drops and they sound just fine ! Made in Japan
I have used many different brand cdr. From the early days of burning cdr's most where made by Taiyo Yuden, made in Japan. Kodak, Memorex, Fuji all burned and played in my car player. Then one day, these brands would no longer play in my car. I had trouble burning some sometime. That is when I started to notice the fogged center was no longer there. They were no longer made in Japan. Sony also worked well till they started making them in India. Nero cd checker told the whole story of what was going on with my favorite cdr brands. I think Maxell also was like that, made in Japan and changed after a while. I have 16 year old burned cdr's that still look and play fine. I also have a lot of gold looking, used to silver cdr's that won't play in some players and that I would not make a copy of because of errors that might occur. Anyway I will pickup some real Taiyos myself before they are all gone.
I used the Fuji-TY and Mitsui cdr's for most all of my disc archiving (along with multiple HD backups) and much of my 'playing cdr's'. I've gotten other brands for play copies and none that I've played over the last 15+ years have failed. I've just gone thru my last 100 TY brand discs...and saw some old stock 2004 Verbatim silver inkjet printable blanks 50 pk., unopened, for $2.99 at Goodwill....so I snatched them up. I'll just use these for play copies and won't worry about their longevity...I take care of my stuff..so they'll last as long as they can. I'm not sure yet who the manufacturer is...nor really the quality. Their not datalife plus...but should be OK. I also have some HP bluetop blanks...all for play copies.
TDK cd-rs certified plus with the dark blue backs are the best. I have them for 16 years and never a problem.. You can get on ebay. but go for the ones in the sealed jewel cases.. The dye has to be the dark blue though..
Bumping up this old thread, but I was surprised to find that T-Y blanks can still be bought here in the UK. I'd assumed that by now they wouldn't be available but I bought a 100 spindle of them a couple of days ago. They are the JVC-branded ones, and have 'Made In Japan' on the outer plastic packaging. They have the frosted centres and the blue phthalocyanine dye. Only about £26.50 including next day postage. The reason for this is I had been having a lot of problems with Verbatim CD-Rs recently. About 2 in 10 were spat out immediately by my CD recorder (REC ERROR!), the track/time information has been showing nonsense on the recorder's display and some have been causing problems with getting the CD burner on the computer to read them and locking up iTunes. The problem ones have had distortion on the first few seconds of audio on the first track, indicating corrupted data. IIRC this first bit is where the TOC is stored so this is presumably why they have been freezing up iTunes. It's always this first bit; if it can get past this the rest of the disc seems fine. Maybe a bad batch but this has put me off Verbatims. I'm amazed the CD recorder even managed to finalise some of them.
I BEEN GETTING a lot OF TDK CD-RS THE OLD ONES off ebay, that have that dark blue dye. and no problems at all.. verbatim aren't no good anymore. I have those tdks from 1999 and they still play just like they did all those years ago.. a lot of it depends on the cd burner too..
Verbatim for burning discs on my desktop PCs. Maxell XL-II Music for my standalone Pioneer CD recorder.
Why hello there, welcome back from under that rock you've been hiding in. Every once in a while, I'll make a mixture of different tracks on the generic Staples brand. I use them in the vehicle.
CD's for the car....buy what is on sale. If one fails toss it burn another. Coasters are cheap. If archival preservation is the goal put on hard drives with some backup scheme. The road noises, car vibrations, engine clatter and other sounds in a car easily negate the acoustic differences between just about any format and source medium. Add to this the inherent quality of the automobile playback hardware and speakers working in one of the worst acoustic environments and the idea of what CD is best for the car just fades from consideration.
I burn so few CDR now that it simply doesn't matter anymore. I still have a half used pack of Verbatim blanks and they are fine, even after being kept for 5 years on a shelf.
For my legacy music recorder, the Sony CDR-Music blank media work the best. If I were going to archive something, the Mobile Fidelity Ultradisc 24K Gold CD-R (if you can still find them).
Here in the UK, my local WH Smith store seems to be getting rid of their CD-R stock. The other day I picked up a cakebox of 25 (their own label) for 2 pounds. Not bad at all - they all seem to work in my Onkyo DXC-390, which it was I bought it for, something the TDKs didn't do.
I stocked up on plenty of JVC/TY stock before they closed up shop. But should I ever blow through them, I'd probably go with the CMC alternatives. Or Verbatim. (But not the BUDGET Verbatim.)
TDK were the best, but when they started to disappear I went to Maxell (Which were horrible 20 years ago), and I was very pleasantly surprised. The Polaroid ones were great for burning for the vehicles and experiments. Sadly, there is no cheap, quality blank CD-r's now. I use Memorex for car burns and experiments and the odd throwaway, and for listening on the stereo's and archiving it is Music Audio and DATA Maxell's. By the way, I still make tapes- I've never stopped. Plus, I do the backups to the external hard drives as well
Taiyo Yuden is the best CD/DVD I've ever used and I've used about every brand. Taiyo Yuden media can be bought on supermediastore.com.
I bought 100 of each CD-R and DVD-R, when they were running low on the original TY blank media. And I think it is my last ever purchase of blank discs. I'm now using thumb drives, my passport drives, and large storage drives. Moved on to music and media servers and USB3 drives when I can. The time has come to move onto other playback formats.
Last night I found deep in my closet were (all unused) 2 Maxell CD-R Pro's, 1 Maxell CD-R Music (74 min.) and a Verbatim CD-R 80. These are the CD-R's that came in individual cases, not spindles. I have no use for these though. More than a few years ago I used them all the time.
Yeah, I've got lots of new/sealed Fuji retail TY CD-Rs I should probably sell off. They're just taking up space. What's the going rate per disc?